Rubin out, Pichai in as Google’s new senior vice president of Android

Rubin moves on to other endeavors with Google; Pichai will still handle Chrome for now.

Google announced that Sundar Pichai has been instated as senior vice president of Android at Google. He'll take over the role from former Senior Vice President of Mobile and Digital Content Andy Rubin.

“The pace of innovation has never been greater, and Android is the most used mobile operating system in the world,” wrote Google CEO Larry Page in an official blog post. “I know [Pichai] will do a tremendous job doubling down on Android as we work to push the ecosystem forward.”

Pichai joined Google in 2004. He led product management for Google Chrome and Chrome OS and also helped develop Google Drive. Pichai will continue working on development for Chrome and other Google App as he takes on his new Android responsibilities.

There are no specifics about what Rubin will embark on next at the company. We've reached out to Google for more official information on the matter and will update as more details emerge.

Florence Ion
Florence was a former Reviews Editor at Ars, with a focus on Android, gadgets, and essential gear. She received a degree in journalism from San Francisco State University and lives in the Bay Area.

51 Reader Comments

So does this signal an upcoming convergence of Android and ChromeOS? It always seemed strange to me for a company who was coming into the OS market with no legacy code to support wouldn't attempt to unify their platform the way MS has tried (and will likely fail to do) with Windows 8.

Does this mean they plan to eventually merge Chromium/Chrome OS & Android into one entity. The introduction of the Pixel with touch could herald that, so that depending on the screen size you could get a different interface. Not sure if the dichotomy would be useful or just confusing, it'll at least bolster the Chrome OS numbers if nothing else.

So, the architects of the two dominant mobile OSes are both out - Forstall for iOS and Rubin for Android. Forstall was kicked out for supposed political in-fighting and Maps fiasco. Rubin I suspect is being let go because of the Motorola purchase.

This market is too big, too important, for the pioneers to be kept around. Business interests shall prevail.

I don't know what Rubin was like to work with — or what he's doing next — but he's always come across to me like a smug little jerk. I'd love to know the real reason behind his ouster. (And it IS generally an ouster when your next position with the company is so vague, IMO.)

Does this mean they plan to eventually merge Chromium/Chrome OS & Android into one entity. The introduction of the Pixel with touch could herald that, so that depending on the screen size you could get a different interface. Not sure if the dichotomy would be useful or just confusing, it'll at least bolster the Chrome OS numbers if nothing else.

Sort of. Android was intended as a stop gap to pass the time until web apps take over the world and all you need is a browser (Chromebook). Google has not abandoned that vision, but I think they have realized that while the rise of web apps has been 5 years away for 15 years, it might actually be further off than expected.

On another note, Android has let the shareholders down big time- Google's profits are stagnant in no small part thanks to the money pit that Android has become. Not only does it make Google less add revenue per user than iOS, it has cost them billions in R&D, the Moto purchase, legal expenses, and covering Moto's losses. A leadership change could signal a course correction with greater emphasis on making Android economically viable or it could be an attempt to buy time by sending a message to shareholders that they are doing something about Android.

I suspect the rationale is that Motorola Mobility has been a drain on Google's resources. It also offers no tangible benefit at the moment, because of Google's relationship with vendor partners.

Nearly 5,000+ jobs cut since Google acquired it? It was hemorrhaging cash prior to Google's acquisition (probably still does). It seems likely that Google was simply rescuing a partner that had offered early and foundational support in the Open Handset Alliance. I only speculate on this as there is little other benefit Google has gained from the relationship and treats the company as a subsidiary 2nd party. Either way, it seems like it was a bad decision for the company's bottom line.

I think attributing this shift in Rubin's responsibility with that decision is a mistake, however. I doubt this is a punishment as was apparently the case with Forstall and Apple.

You think a senior VPs sign-off is all that's needed for a corporate acquisition?

Obviously the Motorola purchase was approved by Page & co. but it was likely driven by Rubin, and it is difficult not to view it as a disaster. The monetary losses aren't a big deal, but that is has done nothing in checking Samsung's rise to be the only profitable Android manufacturer is clearly bad news for Google.

On another note, Android has let the shareholders down big time- Google's profits are stagnant in no small part thanks to the money pit that Android has become. Not only does it make Google less add revenue per user than iOS, it has cost them billions in R&D, the Moto purchase, legal expenses, and covering Moto's losses.

Indeed. Google are riding a pretty big wave with android though, and I think they're just seeing where it takes them - it has plenty of users and has a lot of potential to start making them a lot more money. That will happen in time.

You don't get ousted from Android to work on other projects within the same company. If he was ousted, he'd be fired. If he's still with Google, then I'd have to assume he sees it as moving on.

It's hard to believe he did anything so wrong with Android that he'd need to be ousted. He took on the iPhone and won. That's pretty amazing if you ask me. He's probably gonna head over to some new project where Google needs serious help. That's what you do with people who can take on the likes of Steve Jobs and his iPhone and beat them. You don't "oust" them.

I am split. Chrome is awesome and has great user centered revolutionary features. but chrome OS is the most useless ever. So what will it be when he takes over will it be a chrome or a chromeos. And please pretty please don't try to somehow mate the eagle that is android with the parasite riddled turkey that is chrome OS.

Does this mean they plan to eventually merge Chromium/Chrome OS & Android into one entity. The introduction of the Pixel with touch could herald that, so that depending on the screen size you could get a different interface. Not sure if the dichotomy would be useful or just confusing, it'll at least bolster the Chrome OS numbers if nothing else.

Hard to say, as i am unsure how similar the underlying Linux environments of Android and ChromeOS really are. The upcoming Google IO will be interesting at least, and i wonder if this will impact the direction of ChromeOS or Android more.

He's not being ousted from the company, but when someone else gets your high-profile job and you're being reassigned within the company, it's almost always a matter of losing a job. If he was being moved to another high-profile position (or being promoted), I would agree with you. But when it's vague about what you're going to be doing, it's almost always an ouster, whatever you call it. Rubin will either find another place in the company OR he'll quietly resign after a few months (after he figures out what to do next). It's theoretically possible that there's already a plan for what he's going to do next and it IS what he wanted, but that's unlikely, based on the history of these things.

You "win" when you make money. Android is a money pit for Google, not a profit center. Every estimate I've seen shows that Google makes more money from each iPhone user than it does from each Android user. (And Google doesn't have to develop the iPhone.) In terms of hard, cold profit, Android hasn't won and isn't winning. Samsung is the only Android OEM making money, and Apple is still making far more money than Samsung. The notion that "Android is winning" comes from people don't understand business.

You don't get ousted from Android to work on other projects within the same company. If he was ousted, he'd be fired. If he's still with Google, then I'd have to assume he sees it as moving on.

It's hard to believe he did anything so wrong with Android that he'd need to be ousted. He took on the iPhone and won. That's pretty amazing if you ask me. He's probably gonna head over to some new project where Google needs serious help. That's what you do with people who can take on the likes of Steve Jobs and his iPhone and beat them. You don't "oust" them.

I don't think you can call it beating the iPhone when you haven't curbed their sales much (or any) and when one of your partners (that uses an overlay and not the plain version of the OS itself) is such an overwhelming winner that major newspapers are running articles about stress in the Google/Samsung relationship.

Rubin did a great job. But so did Forstall and Sinofsky. But no one gets lifetime tenure once a profitable product matures. Sometimes they don't even get a promotion. They move laterally -- or they move on. I just find it curious that they didn't already have a position for him that they were ready to announce to the public.

You "win" when you make money. Android is a money pit for Google, not a profit center. Every estimate I've seen shows that Google makes more money from each iPhone user than it does from each Android user. (And Google doesn't have to develop the iPhone.) In terms of hard, cold profit, Android hasn't won and isn't winning. Samsung is the only Android OEM making money, and Apple is still making far more money than Samsung. The notion that "Android is winning" comes from people don't understand business.

ARPU doesn't matter for Google if Android has 10x the number of users which is the projected trajectory. They also won by not having the iOS walled garden closed completely, it would be hard to make money on iOS if they didn't have access to those eyeballs.

You "win" when you make money. Android is a money pit for Google, not a profit center. Every estimate I've seen shows that Google makes more money from each iPhone user than it does from each Android user. (And Google doesn't have to develop the iPhone.) In terms of hard, cold profit, Android hasn't won and isn't winning. Samsung is the only Android OEM making money, and Apple is still making far more money than Samsung. The notion that "Android is winning" comes from people don't understand business.

Sadly this seems to be a pervasive attitude among the narrowminded MBA cog who doesn't understand the larger picture or the market (along with many people in life, for that matter).. "Winning" for Google is allowing it to grow it's data collection and scope so it can leverage that into revenue and new projects, it's an entirely different company than a blue-chipper.. Apple needs hardware sales to survive/grow/appease.. just like a GM or a Dow or an Intel.. Google is a totally different animal and you seem to miss this incredibly important point..

/On TopicCurious how this will play out.. is he headed to project X? Motorola? or on his way out?

ARPU doesn't matter for Google if Android has 10x the number of users which is the projected trajectory. They also won by not having the iOS walled garden closed completely, it would be hard to make money on iOS if they didn't have access to those eyeballs.

ARPU most certainly does matter if it is negative. And for Android to have 10 times the numbers of users as iOS they would need to have pretty much the entire population of Earth on Android for that to be true. In fact, they announced the latest Google "activation" figure today: 750 million. Considering that Apple is well north of 500 million iOS devices sold right now, Android has a long way to go before they can even double the iOS user base, never mind 10 times.

Competition is absolutely beneficial to everyone, but "having the iOS walled garden closed completely" is some sort of bizarre, divorced from reality nightmare. What does it even mean?

You "win" when you make money. Android is a money pit for Google, not a profit center. Every estimate I've seen shows that Google makes more money from each iPhone user than it does from each Android user. (And Google doesn't have to develop the iPhone.) In terms of hard, cold profit, Android hasn't won and isn't winning. Samsung is the only Android OEM making money, and Apple is still making far more money than Samsung. The notion that "Android is winning" comes from people don't understand business.

750 million users = power = business.

No better way to battle of Apple's and Microsofts power by having a strong system yourself. Look at how they don't make Windows Phone apps and thereby keeping more users at Android, away from the Microsoft services built in Windows Phone.

Sadly this seems to be a pervasive attitude among the narrowminded MBA cog who doesn't understand the larger picture or the market (along with many people in life, for that matter).. "Winning" for Google is allowing it to grow it's data collection and scope so it can leverage that into revenue and new projects, it's an entirely different company than a blue-chipper..

Android isn't some startup at the "don't worry about money just grow your market" stage. Its been on the market 5+ years now and has failed to make money for everyone who has touched it with the exception of Samsung and the odd app developer. Furthermore, the potential for huge market share gains isn't there anymore- their market share is nearly maxed, meaning in the future Android growth will slow to the same rate as the smartphone market overall. Still good for many years to come, but the days of 100% year over year growth are ending. Shareholders have shown it plenty of patience- in the time Android went from nothing to losing Google hundreds of millions per quarter (the current state of affairs), iOS went from nothing to bringing in 6-8 billion dollars of pure profit per quarter. That's a huge difference don't you think? Or do you think that having a pile of user data feels as good as having actual money?

Now what makes you so confident that Android will make Google money in the future? By collecting loads of user data to help it sell ads? They are already doing that and the profits aren't appearing. They have plenty of competitors in the ad market who have their own analytics, ie. Facebook, and there is a real chance that Android users will use less Google services in the future, not more, as OEMs steer them away from Google (ie. Amazon) and competing services spring up. Speaking of which, what are these "new projects" you are talking about? Do you mean low margin add supported web services? There's a clear limit to how many adds you can show and how much you can charge for them and competition springs up easily in the web services market. Or are you talking about Google's pie in the sky hardware projects like Google Glass, the Chromebook, Google Cars, etc? Those are probably Google's best chance to grown their profits, though Google hasn't gained any traction with their hardware offerings at all so far. If they did grow their profits through hardware sales, I guess that would make them one of the 'blue-chippers' you just said they shouldn't be compared to. Personally, I think Android is going to need a course correction to avoid going down a dead-end- new leadership may facilitate this.

Johnson & Johnson probably has 750 million users for their toilet paper. Does that equal power and business? Well, they make 1% profit on a fairly small revenue stream. Sad thing is, next to what Android's done for Google (negative profit on even less revenue), that's actually good! You seem to forget that businesses exist to make their investors a profit- marketshare might be a means to that end, or it might be completely irrelevant. Depends on the situation.

On another note, Android has let the shareholders down big time- Google's profits are stagnant in no small part thanks to the money pit that Android has become.

Running a several hundred million active user facebook clone that generates no money probably contributes too.

There are really three parts to "Android".

1. The core OS. Yeah this is high cost but likely not a high as the following two.

2. "Nexus" devices. Not sure what Google does to convince vendors to sell 'at cost' hardware but it can't be cheap. Competing with Amazon and not selling stuff like Amazon to pay off the costs has got to cost. At best this drives down the profit margin. Google isn't really hurting for profits... the lights are going to say on and the private mass transportation network in the Bay area will keep rolling.

3. Selling "at cost" devices. Perhaps Google is learning how to sell and support things, but this isn't really "necessary" for Android .

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Not only does it make Google less add revenue per user than iOS,

The fact there is native browser and Chrome is indicative of why folks just migtht be surfing less on Android. Getting rid of the redundancy there should help. Not necessary to merge all of ChromeOS but there are core overlapping pieces just like between OS X and iOS which don't need to be heavily duplicated.

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it has cost them billions in R&D, the Moto purchase, legal expenses, and covering Moto's losses.

Lost of Moto's losses have been written off by Google too. This isn't an Android thing. Motorola needs to stand on its own. It can be fixed. It is doubtful it will get fixed if it is treated as gimmick to get people to look at ads. It needs folks focused on customers not ads or as a even bigger "Nexus" demo device lab. They don't need gee-whiz products. They solid products that will sell at a profit.

Maybe they are sending Rubin off to help Moto do that. A mix of software+hardware at a tech tactical level. Matching talent. All the "Senior Vice Presidents" I ever met were more political and/or organization creatures than folks who get new things built. Sometimes titlle escalation stuff is the only part of the problem. There is a good chance that Rubin is better a smaller teams, with narrower focus. If he is sitting on "Senior VP" of stock options titles doesn't have to be all that important.

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A leadership change could signal a course correction with greater emphasis on making Android economically viable or it could be an attempt to buy time by sending a message to shareholders that they are doing something about Android.

Android needs to narrow the scope of what they do and what partners do. There is enough momentum now that partners can fill in the blanks without having to hijack the OS. If there is healthy competition in the vendors there should be a need for these large scale Nexus product demos.

Johnson & Johnson probably has 750 million users for their toilet paper. Does that equal power and business? Well, they make 1% profit on a fairly small revenue stream. Sad thing is, next to what Android's done for Google (negative profit on even less revenue), that's actually good! You seem to forget that businesses exist to make their investors a profit- marketshare might be a means to that end, or it might be completely irrelevant. Depends on the situation.

Of course that gives Johnson & Johnson power. They have a brand, they can launch new things with that brand.

There is something called long term thinking. Will Apple make money for Google forever? Will Apple cut off Google's services at some point? No, because users will run to Android if they do. That's where Android is for. To protect Googe's services.

R&D for Android won't cost that much money for ever. With Motorola they might even create real Google phones, battling Samsung and create real hardware profit.

Last I checked, Google isn't making much money from Chrome. So I find it hard to believe that the Android guy was ousted by the Chrome guy because Android wasn't making enough cash. Not much logic there.

Dalvik inside of Chrome? Treating your android instances as just another session to be sync'd with the chrome mothership? Seamless transition from mobile to desktop?

Yep. It's not a coincidence that Google tossed out Web Intents and started from scratch. It's a safe bet whatever the replacement is will play nice with Android and let Chrome and Android apps talk to each other.

It's also not a stretch to imagine runing Android apps inside a Bluestacks-style VM on the Pixel. There's plenty of horsepower there. So you could run Chrome the Android app inside Chrome the OS.